Awe, Nice!

Short interviews from people who work outside, about a moment of wonder they experienced. Wonder at Work.

Mini-Awe-Polis 4 09/18/2025

Bob Bragg 09/18/2025

Forrest Van Tuyl 08/26/2025

Mini-Awe-Polis 3 08/26/2025

Mini-Awe-Polis 3 My name is Maddy Butcher. I live in southwestern Colorado and I’ve worked as a journalist for several decades. I like to spend time outside and, thankfully, I have spent many years working outside, not just playing outside. I think it’s important to distinguish between the two. In my experience, people’s perspectives, experiences, and philosophies towards the outdoors is different depending on if they are building a life where they’re working, if they become an important part of their outdoor world, or if they’re just passing through. So far, we’ve focused entirely on interviews with people working on the land, but that’s not by decree. As I’ve mentioned, I grew up in Maine and I’m looking ahead to interviews with people who work on the water. Occasionally with this project, I share a few mini-moments of awe. My nickname for these segments – cringeworthy, I’m sure – is Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets. This week, I wanted to share some water-related thoughts, maybe to kind of to prep you all for those interviews with fishermen and lobstermen. Okay, maybe it’s just an excuse to share them. The biggest factor in being on the water where I grew up on Middle Bay, anyway, was tide. I’m guessing you know what tide is. But if you don’t, tides are the rhythmic movements of the world’s water, based on the pull of the moon. In Harpswell, the difference between high and low tide is nearly 10 feet. In Miami, closer to the equator, it’s less than three. Heading up the Maine coast to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Bay of Fundy, the difference between high and low tide is 53 feet. Billions of gallons of water flowing in and out, twice a day, every day. Not exactly, twice a day. The movement of the tide is more like once every 12 and half hours. So high tide would be at three in the afternoon on Monday and more like six o’clock by Friday. Tide, at least for us on the mud flats of Middle Bay, meant the difference between heading out to swim or boat or go clamming or fishing or not. It meant that a moored boat would likely be aground or nearly so at low tide, but floating freely at high tide. It meant the difference between swimming in water the height of a kiddie pool or the deep end. Living on the mud flats isn’t all bad though because at low tide on sunny days, the mud soaks up the sun and heats up the incoming water. By August, that means it’s actually swimmable. Maybe water temps in the 60s. In certain areas and at certain times, you do not want to mess with the tide. The flow in tight spaces of the shore creates current that you can’t swim against and often can’t boat against. Maine’s coast is full of ins and outs and wild meanderings. A straight line from the New Hampshire border to the Canadian border is just 228 miles as the crow flies. But the in and outs and peninsulas and islands make it nearly 3,500 miles. 3,500 miles! If you’re on the water, you really need to know where you are, where the tide might take you, or how it might make things more challenging. And oh boy if you want to start combining tide with fog. In the coldest of winters, the ice would freeze clear across Middle Bay, a mile wide in spots. But inevitably, tide would break up the ice in chunks, sometimes as big as a yard or as small as a cooler. It was a thing to go iceberg hopping, a really stupid thing that we did as kids. A boy I knew was iceberg hopping. The tide was going out and took him way down the bay. Like miles away from home. The Coast Guard had to fetch him. I want to say something more about mud flats, since they get so disparaged. I mean, they are not picturesque, like rocky coastlines or sandy beaches. If you’re barefoot or are digging into the mud, that mud will stay with you. It’s so finely grained that it can be hard to wash off. Mud flats have a particularly wonderful but certainly distinctive smell. Earthy, salty, of the seaweed and eel grass and clams and hermit crabs. As a girl, I was riding a bus to summer camp up the coast. There was a girl from New York City who said, ‘pew, what’s that smell? It smells like a sewer! Welcome to the Maine coast, honey. welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us . at awenice.com. Oh, and AweNice also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button . Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl,. Find more of his terrific music from a link . Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time. /episode/index/show/e436cd6d-bcd1-4cf7-9422-dae5704e652b/id/37960895

Rae Nickerson 08/18/2025

Beau Gaughran 07/31/2025

Kim Kerns 07/29/2025

Sisto Hernandez 07/24/2025

Sara Lowe 07/11/2025

Summer Peterson 07/11/2025

Mini-Awe-Polis 2 06/25/2025

Mini-Awe-Polis 2 We all are capable of experiencing moments of wonder. They are not reserved solely for creative or religious people. Moments of awe cross the political spectrum. They cross the livelihood spectrum. Awe is a positive force that can be felt by everyone. Nonetheless, I carry a fair amount of skepticism around with me. It’s a journalistic thing. Like. I tend to think moments of awe actually happen with ho-hum regularity. It’s since we’re humans – distracted, in our heads, with dulled-down senses, that we miss them. When we do witness awesome moments, it’s because that moment occurred just when we happen to be particularly present and tuned in to our surroundings. I mean, how often to you find seaglass or a shard of old Indian pottery when you are not intentionally looking for it? How do you hear the ‘drink your tea, tea, tea of a towhee (the bird in our logo) if you’re not listening? Most Awe, Nice! interviewees tell me they experience moments of awe all the time. Yes, cool things are happening all the time, but these folks, these interviewees see them because they’re kinda special in a 21st century way. They’re quiet and connected, with their senses that is. Occasionally with this project, I share a few mini-moments of awe. My nickname for these segments - cringe away! – is Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets. Since we working our way into the dog days of summer, I wanted to give canines some attention. While dogs sure can wreck nature sightings – because they tend to investigate eagerly and like to eat or chase things that you might want to see – they are also good at helping you discover things you might have otherwise overlooked. So I try to pay attention to them. When we’re working cows, for instance, they alert me to things I should be paying attention to all the time. Cows can hide. I know this may sound silly, but in big country, they can tuck in under scrub oak and you can ride right past them. Of course, this doesn’t happen if your dogs are with you. In the fall, we bring cows off of the National Forest and down to winter pastures. It’s a week of long days and, after a summer of moderate work, the dogs are primed and I feel like they take this week seriously. One day, in the middle of the day, I watched my dogs Monty and Tina over several hours as they helped move cows up a gully and across a big meadow, bordered by scrub oak and Ponderosa pines. I knew they were thirsty, but they are so dedicated to the task that they won’t leave the cows. So I developed a command, ‘get some water’ so that they can essentially give themselves permission to drink. On this day, I saw a drainage and told them to get some water. They heard me but still took turns. Tina went for water. Monty stayed with the cows. When Tina came back, Monty went for water. On the next day, we had more interaction with other help, folks with their dogs and horses. We got the cows to their stopping point that evening, a high desert grassy area with a pond, and settled them in. The dogs knew we were done for the day. I watched as almost all of them seemed to let down. Most of them peeed and pooped. Some starting playing. They had punched their time card and were headed for the tailgate party. My mom told me many times: a productive life is a happy life. Sure, maybe she was telling me to work hard, but she also felt this way – passionately - when it came to dogs. I do think that my dogs are happiest when they are working. But what do I know? /episode/index/show/e436cd6d-bcd1-4cf7-9422-dae5704e652b/id/37148885

Mini-Awe-Polis 1 06/25/2025

Mini-Awe-Polis 1 I developed AweNice with the notion that we all are capable of experiencing moments of wonder. They are not reserved solely for creative or religious people. Moments of awe cross the political spectrum. They cross the livelihood spectrum. Awe is a positive force that can be felt by everyone. This project specifically seeks out interviews with those who work outside and work with animals, people I feel aren’t heard from often and whose daily life is relatively quiet and disconnected. I should qualify that: disconnected in the mainstream, digital sense. I’m finding, though, that they are deeply connected in other ways, to other things. So, anyway, I want to share a few mini-moments of awe that I’ve experienced. Get ready to cringe all you listeners! This is the first segment of Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets. There is a big, solitary, feral cat that comes around at night, especially in winter. I’ve named him Dana because I’m not sure if he’s male or female, but I’ll call him a him. Dana is fat and smart and friendly, which I think is a pretty unusual combination for a feral cat. Because he is not stupid, Dana knows he can handle one dog, but probably not more than one. My dogs are not warm to cats, so, not surprisingly I rarely see Dana during the day. But at last call (sometime between 8 and 11 at night when I check the horses and take a little walk with the dogs), I can sometimes spot him. More than once, he’s crouched in the scrub, a hundred feet from the house, and watched as the dogs, clueless, go streaking by. I think Dana has us pretty well figured out. It’s fun to consider how he considers us. And speaking of cats. I was helping gather calves on New Year’s Day last year. I had two dogs with me and was riding my grey horse, Ray. The country was rough, full of piñon, juniper, and scrub oak. I was sussing out a small, narrow canyon alone. When I say sussing out, I mean that I suspected the calves were down in the canyon, grazing their way east, and I was zigging and zagging, trying to find a way down to them. But the sides were steep, mostly unpassable, and I was having to back up and turn around a lot. My dog, Tina, jogged across this giant boulder jutting out over the gully and I took a picture to capture how frustrating the going was. We paused and listened for animals moving. Then I look across and watched as an adult mountain lion strode up the other side of the canyon, some hundred feet away. She walked with purpose but not urgently. She was large and lanky and graceful, and powerful – I remember her tail, which seemed as long as her body. I soaked it in, not taking my eyes off her, not moving or reaching for my phone. Then I saw another one, a juvenile, following her at a distance. I’ve lived in cat country for more than a decade and I know well the feeling - in your bones and in your mind - that you are being seen by them. But I’d not laid eyes on one until now. Stay safe, Dana. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us . AweNice also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time. /episode/index/show/e436cd6d-bcd1-4cf7-9422-dae5704e652b/id/37148680

Andrew Clements 06/20/2025

Scotty Calhoun 06/20/2025

Ben Longwell 06/03/2025

Aidan Gaughran 06/02/2025

Mike Ewing 05/04/2025

Mike Ewing This week, I interviewed Mike Ewing. While Mike doesn’t work outside all the time, he’s committed thousands of hours to service work on the Appalachian Trail, that’s the legendary 2200-mile route that runs through 14 states, from Georgia and Maine. About 300 of those trail miles are in Maine. I’m from Maine and, as a kid, I spent lots of time camping and hiking. The 8-, 10-, 12-year old me thought those were vacations, but they were actually us doing service work on sections of the Appalachian Trail. For listeners who have mostly hiked in the western states, it’ll be helpful to describe the stark contrast between here and there. Maine gets a lot of rain. Maine is heavily forested. Hiking can be daunting. Often you can’t see where you’ve been or where you’re going. It’s easy to get lost. Some trails are only for the fit and agile, with house-size boulders and seemingly endless verticality. Particularly craggy sections are called notches. They aren’t gaps or passes – which are other ways to describe low points between mountains. Notches are more gnarly and treacherous. My son, Beau, believes they have their own kind of weather. He’s hiked Maine’s Mahoosuc Notch, reputed to be the Appalachian Trail’s most difficult mile, and said, “it’s technical and easy to get injured there. And if you do get hurt, it’s hard to get out.” Mike, who went to Colorado State University and worked for the forest service in northern Colorado after graduating, maintains a stretch that includes Sawyer Notch and Hall Mountain. . We’ll share an interactive map of the AT in the show notes. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us . Our music is by my friend, , who knows a bit about wonders at work. Find his music here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time. /episode/index/show/e436cd6d-bcd1-4cf7-9422-dae5704e652b/id/36429970

Nina Fuller 04/24/2025

Chuck Haraway 04/13/2025

Doug Wilkerson 03/27/2025

Daniel Dauphin 03/27/2025

Dan Flitner 03/27/2025

Caitlyn Taussig 03/27/2025

Awe, Nice!

TOPICS